The Real Shobogenzo: Real bad news for churches

Dahui's Real Original, the First Shobogenzo:

369.  Zhu Shiying, Edict Attendant, once asked master Zhenjing in a letter, “[Zen] is extremely subtle—how does one concentrate in the midst of daily affairs, how does one study?  Please be so kind and compassionate as to point this out.”

Zhenjing replied, “The ultimate subtlety of [Zen] is non-dual, but until you have reached the subtlety there is comparative superiority and inferiority.  When one reaches the subtlety, then the person who understands mind actually knows one’s own mind is ultimately originally enlightened, is actually independent, is actually at ease, actually liberated, actually pure, and in daily affairs just uses his own mind.  If you can take hold of the transformations of your own mind, then use it, without asking if it’s right or wrong.  If you set your mind to thinking, already you don’t know. 

If you don’t take on an attitude, it is naturally real in every particular, clear and sublime in every particular, in every particular like a lotus blossom to which water does not adhere.  The purity of mind transcends that, so if you’re confused about your own mind you are a common creature, while if you understand your own mind you’re a Buddha.  So common creatures are Buddhas, and Buddhas are common creatures—it is due to confusion or enlightenment that they are one or the other.

“Now many people who study the Way do not trust their own mind, do not understand their own mind, and are not able to use the clarity and subtlety of their own mind, and do not attain the ease and liberty of their own mind.  They mistakenly seek Chan and the Way externally, mistakenly set up wonders, and mistakenly create grasping and rejection. 

Even if they cultivate practice, they fall into the nihilistic states of outsiders or the two vehicles.  So-called practice may fall into the pit of annihilation or eternity.  Those with nihilistic views extinguish the original subtle clear nature of their own mind—they just stick to voidness outside mind, and remain in meditative stillness.  Those with the view of eternity do not realize the emptiness of all things, and cling to the existents of the world as realities, considering them ultimate.”

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(Welcome link) ewk link note: Let's see, where are we on the Buddhist catechism project... https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/catechism...

1. "[Zen] is non-dual, but until you have reached the subtlety there is comparative superiority and inferiority. "

   • Duality in Zen then has to do with superior and inferior... the "oneness" would then simply be non-opinony reality.

2. " one’s own mind is ultimately originally enlightened, is actually independent, is actually at ease, actually liberated, actually pure, and in daily affairs just uses his own mind."

3. "then use it, without asking if it’s right or wrong."

4. "Those with nihilistic views extinguish the original subtle clear nature of their own mind—they just stick to voidness outside mind, and remain in meditative stillness"

   • So Zen Masters consider Dogen Buddhists to be the real nihilists! Delicious!

There was so much bad news, I just gave up with the numbering.

Submitted February 09, 2020 at 08:51PM by ewk https://ift.tt/38ehYXo